Support the Space for Life

Would you like to participate in the advancement of natural science and scientific culture? Get people interested in environmental issues? Become a member of the Space for Life Foundation and take part in its activities.

Tabs group

Description

This large family consists of small or medium-sized white, yellow or orange butterflies with orange wingtips. They often have dark or red markings on their wings, and spots visible only in ultraviolet light, thought to be used for courtship. With the Papilionidae, these are the only butterflies to have three sets of fully developed functional legs in both sexes.

The Coliadinae subfamily comprises yellow and orange butterflies called sulphurs and orangetips. They often have black-bordered wings. The members of the Pierinae subfamily are generally white with black markings or white with orange-tipped forewings.

Life cycle

During mating season, the males actively seek females. Once the females have been fertilized, they lay their columnar eggs resembling small towers, individually or in groups on the leaves, buds and stems of host plants. The caterpillars are long and cylindrical. Depending on the species, there may be more than one generation per year, in which case the wing colours may vary according to when the adults appear. In our northern regions, these insects overwinter as caterpillars or chrysalises.

French name

Piérides

English name

Pierids (whites, orangetips, sulfurs, yellows)

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Pieridae

Did you know?

Interesting facts

There are about 1,100 pierid species in the world, 58 of them in North America. Most of these species live in the tropics.

In our regions, most pierid caterpillars feed on plants in the bean or cabbage families.

Among the most common pierids in Quebec are the cabbage white, a white butterfly often seen in gardens, recognizable by the black spot on the forewings. This introduced species now occurs in large numbers almost everywhere in the province.

Another common species, the clouded sulphur, is found in many Quebec regions. It is a yellow butterfly that prefers open areas, meadows and bean fields.

Other pierids are rarer or live in highly specific habitats. For instance, the West Virginia white (Pieris virginiensis) is found only in maple-hickory stands in southern Quebec and Ontario, and in some US states. This type of rich, moist forest is where its host plant, two-leaved toothwort (Cardamine diphylla), grows. Unfortunately, the rich soil in maple-hickory stands means that they are often cleared for farmland. As a result this pierid was considered endangered in Ontario for many years, but has now been taken off the endangered list since enough stable populations have been observed in the wild.